[ecrea] Call for Papers: Rethinking Power in Communicative Capitalism. Critical Perspectives on Media, Culture and Society

Call for Papers

Rethinking Power in Communicative Capitalism. Critical Perspectives on 
Media, Culture and Society

ESA RN18 Mid-Term Conference 2016
Venue: ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Date: September 8-10, 2016
Website: http://esarn18.tumblr.com

Keynote Speakers:
Jodi Dean (Hobart and William Smith Colleges, NY, USA): Communicative 
capitalism and class struggle
Christian Fuchs (University of Westminster, UK): Karl Marx and 
communicative capitalism


Important dates:
Abstract submission deadline: May, 15, 2016
Notification of selected abstracts: June, 10, 2016
Conference dates: September 8-10, 2016

Please send your 250-400 words abstract to Romina Surugiu (University of 
Bucharest) (romina.surugiu /at/ fjsc.ro), Roy Panagiotopoulou (University of 
Athens) (rpanag /at/ media.uoa.gr), and Marisol Sandoval (City University 
London) (marisol.sandoval.1 /at/ city.ac.uk)


Call for Papers:

The proliferation of digital media in the 21st century has once again 
shown the deeply ambivalent and contradictory potentials of 
technological development.

Digital technologies have been celebrated for enabling new levels of 
democratic communication, participatory media production, community 
building and media activism. From Wikipedia, to open source programming, 
open access publishing, and peer-to-peer file sharing, we have witnessed 
the rise of a range of alternative forms of communication and media 
production that seemed to challenge established media business models 
and momentarily contested corporate power.

However, far from decreasing the dominance of corporate media, the 
expansion of digital culture, the Internet and social media further 
strengthened the power of multinational corporations over media culture 
and human communication. Despite the rhetoric of ‘social’ media, 
sharing, community and collaboration, the majority of the digital media 
sphere remains privately owned and controlled. In this corporate media 
system, multinational corporations maintain almost exclusive control 
over large parts of the media and communication technology, 
infrastructure and content.

Power in communicative capitalism is uneven and corporate control 
confronts us with a range of problems such as the systematic 
surveillance of Internet users, an increasingly commercialised online 
environment, devastating environmental impacts of the production and 
usage of media technologies and the global exploitation of digital 
labour. (Digital) media technologies are deeply entangled with the 
on-going economic, social, environmental and political crises.

Mobilising the empowering qualities of digital technologies and their 
potential to contribute to progressive social change requires an 
effective critique of corporate dominance, challenging power 
inequalities and strengthening radical alternatives.

This conference invites contributions that offer a critical analysis of 
corporate media culture and alternatives to it and thus contribute to 
rethinking power in communicative capitalism.

Questions that can be addressed include, but are not limited to the 
following ones:

-	Theorizing communicative capitalism
How does power work in communicative capitalism, how can it be theorised 
and rethought?

-	Ideology in communicative capitalism
What are the main forms of ideology in communicative capitalism and how 
do they operate in the media? Which forms and approaches of ideology 
critique do we need to understand them? How are contemporary right-wing 
extremist, far-right populist, fascist, neoliberal, patriarchal, racist, 
anti-socialist, pro-capitalist and religious ideologies expressed on the 
Internet and social media and what are the ways of expressing their 
petitions for challenging them?

-	The environmental impact of communicative capitalism
What are the environmental impacts of the production of media and 
communication technologies along global supply chains? What are the 
environmental impacts of media usage and ‘cloud computing’? What are key 
drivers of negative environmental impacts and how can they be confronted?

-	Labour in communicative capitalism
How does exploitation and alienation work in communicative capitalism? 
What is the relation between various forms of digital labour? How do 
working conditions look like in the global production of media and 
communication technologies? What are the limits and potentials of a 
global solidary labour movement in communicative capitalism? How can we 
best think of the relation between work and communication, labour and 
profit, the economy and culture? How do we have to rethink or even 
revise the concepts of the “base” and the “superstructure”?

-	Marxism and communicative capitalism
What is the role, importance and legacy of Karl Marx’s works and Marxist 
theory in the age of communicative capitalism?

-	Gender and sexuality in communicative capitalism
What is the role of and relationship of identity politics and 
anti-capitalism for feminist media sociology today?

-	Global perspectives on communicative capitalism
What global power inequalities and asymmetries shape communicative 
capitalism?

-	Communicative capitalism and the public sphere
How can we best theorise and understand potentials and limits for the 
mediated public sphere in communicative capitalism?

-	Media and communicative capitalism
How have the media changed in recent years? Are there scopes beyond the 
capitalist media? How can we best use critical/Marxist political economy 
and other critical approaches for understanding the media today? What is 
the role of media and communication technologies in the acceleration and 
globalization of the capitalist economy? What are the conditions of 
working in the media, cultural and communication industries in the 
contemporary times? Who owns the media and ICTs? What are specific 
characteristics of knowledge and the media as property?

-	Resisting communicative capitalism
What are strategies for left politics to effectively resist and 
challenge communicative capitalism? What is the role of media activisms 
today? And the relation between the street activism and the media 
activism (“Tweets and the streets”…)? And how the unions and other kind 
of non-governmental associations use the media? How their uses differ 
from the uses made by the newly social movements? Which are the 
opportunities and the limits of media activisms?

-	Alternatives to communicative capitalism
What are the problems and post-capitalist potentials of alternative 
projects such as cultural and media co-operatives, left-wing and radical 
media projects, alternative social media, alternative online platforms, 
alternative media, community media projects, commons-based media, peer 
production projects, etc.?

-	Communicative capitalism and the common
What are the potentials or the common to challenge and offer an 
alternative to communicative capitalism? How can the threat of 
co-optation be resisted?

-	Communicative capitalism and state power
How does the relationship of media, communication and state power 
influence the various forms of regulation, control, repression, violence 
and surveillance?


Abstract submission

Submission deadline for abstracts: May, 15, 2016.

An abstract should be sent to:
Dr. Romina Surugiu (University of Bucharest) (romina.surugiu /at/ fjsc.ro),
Dr. Roy Panagiotopoulou (University of Athens) (rpanag /at/ media.uoa.gr),
and Dr. Marisol Sandoval (City University London) 
(marisol.sandoval.1 /at/ city.ac.uk)

Abstracts should be sent as e-mail attachment (250-400 words abstract, 
title, author name(s), email address, institutional affiliations). 
Please insert the words “ESARN18 submission” in the subject.

Conference fees

80 Euro for ESA RN18 members / 100 Euros for non ESA RN18 members 
(conference dinner included)
60 Euro for ESA RN18 members / 80 Euros for non ESA RN18 members 
(without conference dinner)
25 Euro for students (Bachelor and Master) (without conference dinner) / 
45 Euros (conference dinner included)

The registration details, including the registration form, will be 
available on the DINÂMIA’CET-IUL website 
(http://dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/) on June 1, 2016.

You can become a member of ESA RN18 by joining the ESA and subscribing 
to the network. The network needs material support, so we encourage you 
to join or renew your membership. The network subscription fee is only 
10 Euros:
http://www.europeansociology.org/member/

Participation support for 4 PhD students and/or independent researchers 
will be available. This will not cover all costs, but part of them 
(accommodation and full conference fee). Preference will be given to 
presentations that suit the overall conference topic.

If you want to apply for participation support, please indicate this in 
your abstract submission by adding the sentence “I want to apply for 
participation support for PhD students / independent researchers”. The 
notifications about participation support will be sent out together with 
the notifications of acceptance or rejection of presentations. 
Additional information to prove your condition as PhD student or 
independent researcher will be requested.

Conference venue

The conference will be hosted by ISCTE- University Institute of Lisbon 
http://www.iscte-iul.pt/en/home.aspx

ISCTE-IUL is located at Av das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal 
http://iscte-iul.pt/en/quem_somos/localizacao.aspx

The organisation will be carried on by DINÂMIA’CET-IUL 
http://dinamiacet.iscte-iul.pt/ The local organising committee is led by 
Paulo Marques Alves, Assistant Professor at ISCTE-IUL and researcher at 
DINÂMIA’CET-IUL.

The RN18 organising committee is led by Dr. Romina Surugiu, University 
of Bucharest and Dr. Marisol Sandoval, City University London.

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chauss�de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------